Windows only: Tiny utility Vista Shutdown Timer turns your computer off at the time you specify—and even fades the volume out so you can stay asleep.

Using the no-install-required utility is easy enough—just choose the number of minutes to wait before shutting down or going into standby mode, and click the Run Timer button. You can also use the option to fade out the sound volume, which could really come in handy if you use your computer to play music at bedtime—so the volume will fade instead of a jarring cut-off when the system shuts down.

Vista Shutdown Timer is a free download, we tested it in Vista but it may work in XP—share your experience in the comments if it works for you. For a similar utility to schedule automated shutdowns, check out previously mentioned WinOff—or if you want to stop automatic updates from shutting down your computer, ShutdownGuard might be what you are looking for. Thanks, Marc!